Retail display structures are typically designed to support products in high density and exposure. The retail display of magazines and other printed media is particularly problematic with respect to adequate retention of multiple copies on a plurality of shelves, and the amount of exposure of the front covers in each row. In a dense display of fifty or more different magazines the foremost rows or shelves of magazines substantially obscure the back rows, often to the extent that only the very tops of the covers behind the front row are exposed. This problem is somewhat reduced by increasing the vertical distance between rows, such as shown for example in U.S. Pat. No. 2,938,634. However, when this is done with shelves having an open front, the magazines can easily "dog-ear" and fall forward off the display, as the reduced amount of overlap of the magazine immediately in front does not help to retain the one behind it. Also, the angle at which the shelves are tiered is fixed throughout the vertical range of the display. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,613,047; 4,905,845 and 4,949,849 each describe tiered media displays wherein the rows of shelves are angled away from the front at a fixed angle for the entire height of the display.
To address this problem, pockets have been devised which support magazines along a bottom edge and the side edges of the front cover. A plurality of pockets are attached to a rack or wall. U.S. Pat. No. 5,328,037 describes a magazine display rack having cooperating pocket halves attached to a vertically oriented slat wall. Although the pocket halves adequately retain the magazines, and may be adjustable in width by sliding the halves within a slot, the amount of exposure of the front covers is limited to the extent of vertical separation of the wall slats. In any type of rack or pocket attached to a vertical wall, as also shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,817,900 and 4,844,266, the angle of presentation of the front covers in each row is the same throughout the vertical range of the display. This angle is optimum for viewing at only one particular height.